Hitchhiker's sister had 'bad feeling'

CRIMINAL HISTORY: Jason Frandi, whose body was discovered with the body of a Czech tourist, had a conviction for abduction.

Czech Republic tourist Dagmar "Dasha" Pytlickova.

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The sister of a Czech tourist murdered near Waimate in May last year had a bad feeling about her sister hitchhiking to meet her in Cave.

An inquest is being held in the Timaru District Court today into the deaths of Dagmar "Dasha" Pytlickova, 31, and Waimate man Jason Keith William Frandi, 43, who police at the time believed killed Pytlickova before dying of self-inflicted wounds.

Coroner Richard McElrea has placed an interim suppression around details of the deaths of both.

Pytlickova, also known as Dasha, arrived in New Zealand in January 2012 and had been working at a Cromwell area vineyard. She left Cromwell on Saturday May 26, 2012 and was hitchhiking to Cave to met her sister as both were flying to Auckland to go to a Florence and the Machine concert.

Frandi is said to have picked her up at Deadmans Point. Her phone was switched off at 6.40pm and both bodies were discovered in a forest block owned by Blakely Pacific Forestry in the Pentland Hills near Waimate during a charity bike ride event on the Sunday morning.

At the inquest today Detective Nicholas Osborne involved said Pytlickova's Cave-based sister had texted her in Czech on the Saturday morning saying she had a bad feeling about her hitching but hopefully she would be alright.

Pytkicova text back she was stuck an hour out of Cromwell at a point known as dead mans corner. Just after 3.15pm two German tourists who knew the Czech saw her hitching at the layby. When they drove past again after 4pm they noticed she had gone.

At 5.18pm she texted her sister to say she had got a ride with a real character "a right peasant but at least he paid for a coffee''.

At 5.29pm the sisters spoke and organised for her to be dropped off at Cave at 7pm. There was a second call to clarify the plans and that was the last the sister heard from Pytlickova.

Ms Pytlickova had been in New Zealand for five months.

The month Ms Pytlickova and Frandi died, Frandi had been the subject of a police investigation into a historic claim of child abuse. Police had obtained a signed statement from the parents of the complainant about the complaint and their association with Frandi.

Evidence was given Frandi had worked in the Pentland Hills area as a digger driver for the previous four years and was familiar with the area. He had worked at the original planting of the block in the mid 1990s. He was known as a good worker who had friends but preferred his own company.